Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac:15143 comp.protocols.appletalk:563
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!eos!labrea!decwrl!decvax!dartvax!eleazar!kevins
From: kevins@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU (Kevin M. Schofield)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.protocols.appletalk
Subject: Re: E-mail Mac/Mainframe
Message-ID: <8695@eleazar.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 17 Apr 88 00:31:43 GMT
References: <13491@comp.vuw.ac.nz> <1611@lll-lcc.aRpA>
Reply-To: kevins@eleazar.dartmouth.edu.Dartmouth.EDU (Kevin M. Schofield)
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 40
Keywords: Appletalk, E-mail, UN*X

In article <1611@lll-lcc.aRpA> longstaf@lll-lcc.llnl.gov.UUCP (Thomas A Longstaff) writes:
>In article <13491@comp.vuw.ac.nz> alex@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Alex Heatley) writes:
>>          I am looking for a mail system for the Macintosh that can be
>>interfaced to our mainframe mail system.
>
>Please post this information if it exists.  Just yesterday our group
>was discussing the same problem, and were concerned that we may have
>to write the solution in-house.  Our general concensus was that
>whether or not this product existed, it would be of great interest to
>many other groups and mightr be worth our while to find/develop such a
>beastie.  
>
This appears to be a hot topic; it's been developing over the last few months,
and I would hazard a guess that it's going to get a lot hotter in the next
few months. Here at Dartmouth, we've looked at the email products that currently
exist for the Mac, and we're not happy with any of them. We want a system that
will handle 5000+ users, have an interface to Internet-style mail, etc. 
We've decided to write our own, though I imagine that someone else will come
along with one real soon. 
 
There are lots of issues involved here:
 
   1. What mainframe to implement it on? (probably UNIX, but then we still have
   the question of Appletalk support on a UNIX box).
 
   2. How many users will it support?
 
   3. What does the user interface look like? (believe me, this is NOT an easy
   question, nor is there any obvious solution)
 
   4. What features should it support? filing of messages? enclosures? 
   aliases/mailing lists? etc.
 
Ours is coming along nicely, but the server end is being written on a mainframe
running an operating system developed here at Dartmouth, and so won't be
portable.  I would be interested in hearing who else is working on this, as I
really do believe that a Mac email system with an interface to mainframe mail
will be in great demand in a few months.
 
-Kevin M. Schofield
 Software Development       Kiewit Computation Center  Dartmouth College